


Stars Are Fire

by okayokayigive



Series: Ouroboros [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio), Doctor Who (TV Movie)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-17
Updated: 2013-05-17
Packaged: 2017-12-12 02:22:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/806061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okayokayigive/pseuds/okayokayigive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a sequel, more or less, to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/766080">What Will Be</a>, and the second story in the Ouroboros ‘Verse.</p><p>  <em>The universe is infinite, and the power of the TARDIS is unmatched…or so the old stories go. The TARDIS, of course, is many things - powerful, meddlesome, and nurturing. Once, she reached through the tendrils of time to give a war-torn Doctor a beautiful future - and a beloved girl much happier dreams. But the TARDIS, like so many of her Doctors, is meddlesome, and isn’t satisfied with stopping there.</em></p><p>  <em>While the Doctor’s Eighth and Ninth incarnations are saving each other in one timeline, the Eighth Doctor and the Corsair are having adventures in another. When their travels take them into a parallel world, the Doctor meets someone who he doesn’t know yet.</em></p><p>“Doubt thou the stars are fire / doubt that the sun doth move / doubt truth to be a liar / but never doubt I love.” (Hamlet II.ii.116-119)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Doubt thou the stars are fire

The universe is infinite, and the power of the TARDIS is unmatched…or so the old stories go. The TARDIS, of course, is many things - powerful, meddlesome, and nurturing. Once, she reached through the tendrils of time to give a war-torn Doctor a beautiful future - and a beloved girl much happier dreams.

Now, she finds the possibilities calling to her again. A glitch in the proper timeline - a vulnerability that could prevent Her Rose from making her way back to Her Thief, from stopping the stars going out.

The TARDIS looked out across all of time and space, considered the many faces of Her Thief, and drew two timelines together. It was time for the Doctor to save his Rose.

—

His first thought upon waking up was “who am I?” - followed swiftly by “oh, not again.” (This incarnation, he remembered, had a bad habit of losing its memory - a bit like the Carnasians on Heuposs Three lost their shirts.) His memories returned in hazy flashes after that - traveling, Time Lord, TARDIS, Doctor, Corsair, drinking…ah, yes. The drinking.

After a bit of convincing (“Oh, come on, Doctor. We haven’t been universe-hopping in an age. Not since that time we woke up in the Bank of England vault, come to think of it. With all the political nonsense happening on Gallifrey, you know it won’t be long before we’re called back home. So come on. One for the road, yeah?”), they’d opened up a path to a random parallel world, ready to count the differences like some strange childhood puzzle - and landed on a parallel Earth. 21st Century, from what he could remember…with zeppelins. Lots of zeppelins. Strange method of air travel, that - reminded him of a storm and the night he met Charley. Other than the zeppelins, though, this parallel Earth had seemed rather boringly similar to Earth Prime, and so he’d let the Corsair drag him off for a night of drunken debauchery.

At least he’d somehow made it back to the TARDIS. The Corsair clearly had not. Assuming the best way to track down his adventurous friend would be to start at the beginning, the Doctor headed back to the pub…where he saw her.

“There she is - the girl from the TARDIS. The girl that…wait. What girl from the TARDIS?”

In an instant, the Doctor was inundated with flashes of another timeline. The end of a great war. The TARDIS appearing in the visage of a young girl. Crossing his own timeline to save his future self, to stay with her. His Rose. She was his reason for everything.

Another timeline. Another version of himself. Another Rose. Autons. Daleks. Cybermen. He saved her. He saved him. Over and over again. He lost her. She found him. He walked away but spent a lifetime loving her…together and apart.

So many timelines, all interwoven. The two of them. Always the two of them.

And oh, how he loved her. In every single one.

But who was she? Who was this girl, this human woman that he loved so much that it burned across time?

It was time to find out.


	2. Doubt that the sun doth move

In a world where zeppelins fill the sky, Rose Tyler dreams of things beyond imagination. She dreams of living plastic, of dogs with no noses, of blue eyes and leather, of palettes of warm brown. She dreams of “what if”s and “what could have been”s. She dreams of all those things…on the nights she sleeps at all.

Lately, her nights, like her days, were filled with a quest: break through the dimensions, find the Doctor, stop the darkness. Even now - she’d been dropped off at the pub by her team, with strict instructions to “Eat, drink, rest, but _don’t_ work” - she sat in a booth, a forgotten pint and cooling chips in the far corner of the table, technical drawings spread before her.

“Maybe, just maybe, if I increase the power here…” Occupied with her notations and calculations, Rose didn’t notice the red ink smearing under her hand. She also didn’t notice a set of curious blue eyes watching her from across the room.

—

He noticed her, though. With or without the TARDIS’s input, once he saw her, really saw her, the way the timelines were bending and weaving and glittering around her, there was no looking away. He saw her determination, the way her tongue stuck in her teeth as she made marks on the papers in front of her. He saw the single-mindedness reflected in the dark circles under her eyes, in the forgotten meal, in the way she exuded exhaustion from every pore. And he recognized a sadness in her - something so future-familiar that he worried about what was to come for him almost as much as he worried about what must have happened to her. Someone so young, a sorrow so deep…and so well-hidden.

“But the timelines,” he mumbled to himself, “the way they swirl around her, rush toward her - if I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was attached to the TARDIS somehow.”

The timelines, the sorrow, the powerful future memories of love - it all combined to pull him to her, and he found himself at her side before he knew what to say.

She didn’t look up. “Sorry, mate. I’m not interested.”

He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry at her rough brush-off. But he knows he needs her, needs to at least talk to her. Caught speechless and off-guard, he decided to go with the truth.

“I know you. Or rather, you know me. Will know me? It’s all very complicated. If I could just have a few minutes of your time…”

That ramble.

Rose’s heart skipped a beat.

It couldn’t be.

But…there was only ever one man who rambled like that.

“Doctor?”

“Why yes, actually. I wasn’t sure…”

Rose stood up and laid her hands on his chest.

Two heartbeats.

“It’s you. It’s really…how did you get here? When did you regenerate? How long’s it been?” She pulled him into a crushing hug.

“Oof! I think perhaps we need to talk. Somewhere a little more private, perhaps? Come along. I know just the place.”

He grabbed her things from the table and offered her his arm, twitching a bit with surprise when she grabbed his hand instead (though, he noted, it felt strangely natural).


	3. Doubt truth to be a liar

The tears began to fall the moment she entered the TARDIS. "I've missed you. I've missed this. So much."

They sat together on a cushy velvet sofa off to the side of the (so very different from what she was used to) console room and she immediately snuggled into his side, laying her head on his shoulder. "So. Is this body number eleven now? Or is it twelve? Did I miss one?"

He didn't even try to hide his surprise. "No, Rose. That's just the thing. That's what I've been trying to tell you. And I suppose that answers a missing part of things, actually. I'm, well, I'm only in my _eighth_ incarnation."

She sat up, terror writ plain across her face. "But that means I'm from your future. That's bad! Paradox bad. _Reapers_ bad. We shouldn't be here!"

He grabbed her hand as she launched herself from her seat, stilling her before she could run from him. "No. it's okay. The TARDIS brought me here. Well, us. I'm here with a friend of mine - the Corsair. Do you know him?"

Her face went white. "He's another Time Lord?" 

The Doctor nodded. "No. No, I...I don't know any other Time Lords."

"That's strange. I don't suppose you can tell me why?"

Rose shook her head.

"No matter. There's bound to be things we shouldn't talk about. I suppose that's one of them." He tugged her back into his side - it felt like the most natural thing in the world - but turned her head so he could look into her eyes.

"There's something I don't understand, however - something that I _need_ to understand." He brushed her hair back from her face, shifting a stray piece behind her ear. "I know that you are important, worth living, worth dying for. I know that with every cell of my being. But who _are_ you, Rose Tyler? Who are you to _me_?"

Rose blinked back tears. Hearing her name like that, falling from these lips after so long...it was just too much. And what a question. A question that could never be answered, she thought - not with her Doctors, at least.

Rather than try to answer with words, Rose leaned close and pressed her lips to his. The kiss was hesitant, gentle, and full of all the things she never got to say to either of her Doctors. It took a moment to adjust to soft lips under hers - not chapped or thin - and warm velvet instead of leather or cotton under her hands...but she _knew_. This was the Doctor. She was finally, finally kissing the Doctor - and he was kissing her back.

As their kisses grew less heated, they both pulled away slightly, hands and foreheads touching. "Oh. That's wonderful!" he said with a smile. "Fantastic, even!" 

Moments later - or it could have been hours, even days, in relative time - they both drew back again, cheeks flushed and chests heaving. 

"So," he started, his eyes casting around the room for a change of topic, "tell me about these plans you're working on." 

Rose blinked at the sudden change of subject, before laughing at how like her new new Doctor that redirection was. She reached for the plans. "It's a dimension jumper - they're calling it a cannon. It's effectively a cross-void transport. There are problems in this universe - the darkness is coming, they say, and the stars are disappearing, one by one - so we were working on it as a way back to him. To you. But you're here now - you can take me back yourself, yeah?"


	4. But never doubt I love

Her eyes sparkled with hope, and he kissed her again just in case it was his last chance. "I'm sorry, Rose. I can't see what happens exactly, but I can see that your timeline is fixed - you can't come back with me. You need to find your own way back."

Her smile crumbled, and she turned away. "But this modification you just made? Increasing the power to the particle stabilizers? This will work when the moment is right. It'll prevent you from flying to pieces, in fact...but it will work. It will. I need you to trust me on that. And the TARDIS - she agrees. Even if you don't trust me, you trust her, right?"

Rose nodded solemnly. "So that means I'll make it back? I'll see him again? You, I mean?"

"I can't promise you that. But you will make it back - that I know. You've done the impossible, you amazing, precious thing. No wonder I love you so very, very much, in all my incarnations. Don't ever doubt that, Rose Tyler. Not for a single moment."

Her smile was genuine but sad, as she basked in the glow of his words, but mourned for the loss of her potential way home. "Not yet" meant more time away from the Doctor - from her Doctor, this Doctor, *any* Doctor - and that was a sacrifice she was tired of making. Eyes closed, she nuzzled into his chest and sighed. "Can we just--"

The Corsair chose that moment to make his entrance, crashing through the doors and stumbling through the console room. "Doctor. Doctor! There you are. Did you hear? Did you get the call? They've been running through my head and..." He trailed off as he noticed Rose and the way she was entangled with the Doctor. "No...I don't suppose you did. A bit preoccupied, were you? Good for you! It's about time."

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Corsair, this is Rose. Rose, Corsair. Now what's this about a call?"

"It's the High Council. They're calling us home. Something political, I'm sure - but they're calling everyone this time. Big mental blast - c'mon now all you Time Lords, back to Gallifrey you go."

Rose stood, doing her best to hide the chill that ran up her spine. She knew what it meant for the Time Lords to be called back - and it wasn't politics or civil unrest. This was the opening salvo of the Last Great Time War.

"I suppose that's my cue."

They walked to the doors of the TARDIS, sides pressed together and hands clenched tight. "I'll see you in my future, then?" 

"Not if I see you first."

With one final kiss, Rose turned and left the TARDIS, plans for the dimension cannon in hand.

She made it through the full dematerialization before she broke and let the tears fall freely.

"Good luck, my Doctor. I'll be waiting for you."

\--

As she hurtled through the vortex, carting Her Thief and His Pirate off to Gallifrey, to the War, to the destruction that was to come, the TARDIS gave a heavy sigh. Everything would not be okay. Death and destruction and the aftermath of choices were about to rip their way through the universe. 

But Her Rose would find her way back. The darkness would not fall. 

The TARDIS looked ahead, glimpsed a reunion on a deserted street. Heard words like "It's me. I'm here." and "Long time no see." and "I could spend it with you, if you want." Everything would get better with time.  
And time was one thing the TARDIS had plenty of.


End file.
